


we rise in the dying

by Companionable



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Casual Ableism, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5273804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Companionable/pseuds/Companionable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike climbs out of the cave and Sam is the one to lead Josh from his demons. This leads to a future where they do this for each other in equal measure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. give in and get out

**Author's Note:**

> a few disclaimers up front.
> 
> first: the main cast are fresh out of college, as opposed to fresh out of high school. im not sure if the latter is canon, but at the time of writing it was unclear, so i ran with the former. in any case, i feel like i really needed the emotional maturity for this fic to work.
> 
> second: i was also unsure at the time of writing where until dawn takes place, so i set it in a canadian city i love.
> 
> third: i do not frequently experience psychosis, only mild psychotic symptoms associated with severe anxiety attacks. that said, i made the decision to leave in the canonical ableist term used to refer to the character josh plays in the first half of the game. if you take issue with any of this, please drop me an ask on tumblr [here](http://tinytinychopper.tumblr.com/ask) so i can make revisions with your help.
> 
> this has been a two month labour of love and personal issues, so i hope that you enjoy it <3

“Someone has to go back. Warn the others to stay inside.”

Their voices, their breaths, echo off the cave walls as each exhale hangs in the air in front of them, frozen by the cold. Josh’s breaths come faster than the others, his body shaking from the chill more than even Mike and Sam’s, cold as they are in their wet clothes. The overalls... they’ll be hard to maneuver in the water on the way back.

“Sam, you should--”

“You can climb up there, can’t you?” Sam interrupts, Mike’s face twisting into something like regret as she does. She schools her features, a careful mask of determination. “You can get up those rocks? With your hand the way it is?”

“I--Sam, I can’t, my hand--”

“Can you do it?” she demands of him, and Josh turns and rubs at his face and mutters and she feels almost bad about it.

Mike breathes, and looks pained. “Sam--”

“Go, Mike.” She steps toward Josh, slowly waving a hand into his periphery -- just so he’s not startled by her proximity -- and easing into his space. An arm around his shoulders, his hand grasped in hers. “I’ll go back the way we came with him, and we’ll figure out what to do when we get there.”

He stands there, looking at the two of them, hesitating, wasting time, giving the monster that’s tracking them through the tunnels all the more opportunity to find them, and she’s furious. She doesn’t know at who, she doesn’t know what about, she’s not even sure if she’s mad at them or at herself, but she’s angry.

“Michael!--” she shouts, but he holds up a hand.

“Alright. I’m going.” He turns to the wall, braces his hands on it, tests the strength of the remaining three fingers of his left hand, turning it so the joint of his thumb holds most of his weight, and then he nods. “I’m going, but if I don’t see your ass back at that lodge in twenty minutes, I swear I will--”

“I got it. We’ll _both_ be there, Mike. Now get out of here.”

Luckily, he recognizes the dismissal, and begins climbing. Sam rests a hand on Josh’s back, turning him away and toward the direction of the river she and Mike waded through to get here. “S’cold,” Josh says, small and quiet. Timid.

“Yeah, it is. It’s about to get colder. Come on,” she says as gently as she can manage to be, which is frankly not much.

Walking under the hanging corpse of the stranger who helped them sends Josh back into a frenzy of tormented mutterings and half formed exclamations that Sam tries her best to quell. When all he can say is “Sorry,” over and over, she doesn’t ask him who he’s apologizing to. What he’s apologizing for.

“Sam,” he whispers, strained and desperate. “Sam, I’m sorry. I need you to know I’m sorry, you need to know that. I wasn’t doing the right thing, but it _felt_ like I was and I’m so _sorry_...”

She stops, and he limps into her back, starting when she remains unmoved. “Don’t,” she says.

“But... no, Sam, you don’t get it, I--”

“Don’t apologize to me now, Josh,” she says, hushed to keep the anger from colouring her tone. “Don’t apologize when you’re mentally unavailable, don’t apologize when we’re both half convinced we’re going to die, don’t apologize to me when your si--when this monster is still hounding us.” On impulse, she reaches back to grab his hand, and squeezes. She’s not sure if she wants it to be reassuring or painful, but she feels him straighten behind her, and she thinks maybe it’s just grounding. “Apologize to me when you’re getting the treatment you need, when you’re lucid, when you know exactly what you’re doing and that it will mean something to me that you do.”

A weight presses between the blades of her shoulders, his head, and she hears Josh sigh. Fingers squeeze hers back.

“Thank you,” she whispers, just as a nearly-human screech echoes off the walls. “Come on, we have to move it.”

She drops his hand, but sticks close to him and lets him into the water first when they reach the edge. He slips in, looking alarmed and uncomfortable, but her sympathy only extends as far as it takes him to stop moving without her prodding. She eases herself down and into the water behind him, and they move.

Until something brushes past her foot and pulls her under.

The cold water is shocking, and she has to fight against her first instinct to gasp against it as she’s dragged through the shattering chill like a dirty cloth. As suddenly as she was grabbed she’s let go, and when she breaks the surface with a painful inhale, she hears the hissing-roar of Hannah-turned-Wendigo. Pressing herself still against the walls of the cavern, fighting the chill that sets her bones shaking, Sam watches Josh get plucked from the water without a care by long, skeletal arms bearing a tattoo so familiar to her it aches more than the cold.

“Hannah!” Josh cries, and the thing only screeches at him again, elongated teeth glimmering in the dim moonlight that shines in from Mike’s escape route.

Sam prepares herself to scream, to put herself in danger to let Josh free, and he looks terrified to be held by the neck above the water, but he stills. “Hannah?” he says again, pleading, and the creature his sister has become freezes.

Holding her breath, Sam prays. Prays to the mountain, to the spirits that live on it, for the order of the world to right itself and balance out the shit that they’ve endured in a single night. That it balances in Josh’s favour, that his nature is inherently good enough for whatever forces are at work to save him.

The Wendigo wails, then flings the long arm holding Josh off toward the water wheel, the wood cracking and groaning under the force. As Sam fights the urge to call out to him, the monster before her moves in blinking motions back to the ledge they came from, crawling away like a spider that knows the flies in its web can’t escape. She waits, waits as long as she can until the hiss-screeches of the Wendigo are nothing more than indistinct reverberations, and then she swims. Like an Olympic hopeful racing against the clock, she rushes to the wheel, finding Josh bruised and bleeding but still breathing in the wreckage. “Come on, come _on_ , Josh. We need to go, please tell me you can walk, please.”

He eases himself up and off and back into the water, but it’s as if the cold doesn’t get through the impassive wall he’s become now. His expression doesn’t change. He’s not muttering anymore.

He takes a few steps towards her and she nods. “Okay, okay good. Great, let’s get the _fuck_ out of here.”

The trek back up the mountain is cold and unforgiving, but the sounds -- which will haunt her dreams until she dies -- never follow them back to the lodge, and Sam tries not to wonder where that may mean they’re being heard now. If the monster isn’t tracking them...

When they reach the lodge, Mike is standing at the back door and wheels on them with fists raised, looking frightened and unsteady, but he sheds it like so much skin and carefully does not make a face when his eyes land on Josh. “You made it,” he says to Sam. “Thank God.”

“Yeah, we’re here, but we won’t be for much longer if you keep standing around like this. Is the door locked?”

“You think I’d be standing around waiting for death to greet me if it wasn’t?”

Sam fights a scoff and settles for a frown. “I don’t know, Mike, I’m not exactly crystal fucking clear on your decision making right now.”

He frowns back at her, but there’s no heat in it; or maybe she just doesn’t feel it after so long in the chill of the mountain air. “Whatever, pass me that rock, let’s get inside.”

Everything happens in a rush, and suddenly Sam is face to face again with the monster bearing the tattoo her best friend wanted for years, standing stock still and hoping against hope that her nerves don’t get her killed.

“Hey! Hannah!” Josh yells, and Sam only moves to tell him to stop.

The Wendigo is in front of him before she can blink, and it stares down at him like the decision between eating him and letting him go is just too much.

“I’m so sorry, Hannah,” he whispers, and then Sam sees the match in his hand.

“Josh, no!”

Mike is already out the door with Ashley, Chris and Emily, the light switch abandoned, and Josh is on the other side of the stairs. It’s either run to the door and leave Josh, or...

Sam makes a decision. She sprints for Josh, grabbing his hands before he can strike the match, and waiting for the impact of the Wendigo’s teeth or claws.

They don’t come.

When Sam dares to turn her head, following Josh’s line of awe-struck sight, she sees the Wendigo, the monster formerly her best friend, standing tall and still. The bodies of the other two monsters lie motionless on the floor of the lodge, disintegrating as though the only thing holding them together anymore was the sheer force of their hunger. She holds still, not letting Josh’s hands go, while the Wendigo before them turns with two agonizingly slow motions, and moves within a split second to sit by the pipe leaking gas. Its eyes are nowhere near them, not possibly capable of catching their movements, and Sam doesn’t hesitate to drag Josh out the door.

“Sam, I gotta--” he starts, shaking one of his hands free, and she lets him.

“Wait till we’re out the door,” she says, and when they are, he strikes the match and lights it, then throws it into the lodge.

The building lights up with flame, the gas combusting with all the force of a hurricane and all the warning of a snapping twig, and Sam is thrown out into the snow by it, Josh landing with a groan next to her.

“Sam?! Josh! Are you guys okay?” comes Ashley’s concerned scream, and Sam laughs to hear it, hysterical and frightened like she’s never been in her life.

“I think we made it?” Josh says next to her, laughing with her, both more and less hysterical than Sam feels, but it’s a problem for later. “I think we’re all alive?”

Mike grunts. “Yeah. Yeah we are.”

Josh rolls in the snow, his overalls from the Psycho outfit torn and ripped in so many places that he must be colder than anything, and he looks directly at Mike. “Dude, I--About Jess...”

“Not now, Josh. Just... fuck off, for right now.”

He nods, rolling onto back again. “I need to sleep.”

“You need your fucking meds,” Chris says, but there’s no edge to it. Tentative concern, a bone-deep weariness, but no sharpness.

Emily sobs. “Will they just land already? What the fuck, how hard is it to land a fucking helicopter up here?!”

“Hard, Em, alright?” Mike snaps, and Emily whimpers. “We just... it’s done now.”

“Yeah,” Sam mutters, watching Josh curl into himself in the snow. “It’s done now.”

\-----

“Miss Callaghan, please just answer the quest--”

“No!” Sam cries into the echo chamber of the interrogation room. It sounds so much like the caves, she half expects every other sound to be a Wendigo mimic, that she’ll see some milky-eyed freakshow crawl around the walls and eat her for lunch. “I’m not answering that, you can’t _say_ that shit, he’s _not well_ \--”

The interrogator sighs. “Miss Callaghan. Please, be calm. I was only wondering if maybe Mister Washington’s recent mental health problems could have lead to the death of the man we found in the mines.”

She grits her teeth hard against the vulgarities she wants to spit at this woman feigning concern, and breathes first in, then out. “No.”

“Well, some of your friends mentioned that Mister Washington was behaving dangerously earlier that night, and--”

Sam slams her hands on the metal table separating her from landing her fists on the interrogator. “Stop.” Breathing continues to be not easy, but she forces it. “Josh is a _traumatized_ young man, dealing with the deaths of his sisters after some stupid bullshit my friends and I pulled a year ago. Sure, he has a number of issues with his brain chemistry, that’s true, but that his ‘ _mental health problems_ ’ make him your first suspect is _far_ more indicative of your half-baked attempts at an investigation than how severe his state is.” 

She breathes again, more even this time. “I need you to _tell_ me,” she hisses, “if he is getting the same treatment right now as I am. If you’re just sitting there, on the other side of some fucking line you’ve drawn, asking him questions and not giving him time to answer properly, assuming silence is proof of guilt, Hell! Assuming he’s guilty before you’ve even asked him anything!”

Her accusation hangs in the air, bouncing off the walls eerily, but she doesn’t back down. The woman interviewing her sighs. “Miss Callaghan--”

“Don’t bullshit me. After the night I’ve had, I can fucking smell it.”

Another sigh. “Alright. Mister Washington -- along with the rest of your friends -- is currently being attended to at the hospital at the foot of the mountain. They assured me that they have their best psychiatric team looking after Mister Washington, so--”

Sam nearly growls. If she weren’t feeling such an aversion to ever eating again, she might think she’d been bitten down in the mines. “Not. Good enough.”

“Then what would you like to hear, Miss Callaghan?”

“I’d like to hear that he’s going to be getting therapy, proper therapy. Not just medication thrown at him like a couple of well placed pills are going to make all of this go away.”

The woman crosses her arms. “I’m afraid that’s up to him. Now, if that’s all you’d like to ask me about, I believe we were conducting an interview.”

“You were conducting a bunch of bullshit, but whatever. Get on with it.”

It takes another thousand and one questions to get out of the interrogation room, but Sam manages to give what she thinks are reasonable answers. Based on the look the woman gives her as she leaves, Sam would say that there was maybe a little more bite than bark.

When she re-enters the lobby of the Park Ranger station, Ashley and Emily meet her. “Are you okay?” Ashley asks, reaching up to cup her face and pat at her cheeks. “You were in there so much longer than the rest of us, did they say something to you?” One of her hands is cold from holding an emergency ice pack to her black eye.

“No,” Sam says with an apologetic smile while Emily looms over Ashley’s shoulder. “I just, sorta... y’know, gave ‘em hell. For Josh.”

Ashley’s hands drop, clenched into fists, immediately. “How can you trust him, after what he did, Sammy? What he did to you?”

She sighs, scrubs at her face. “I don’t know, Ash. I’m mad, I’m pissed as fucking shit, but...” she chokes down a sob, wipes at her eyes, and blows out a breath. “But you didn’t see him down there. You didn’t find him screaming at the walls and tearing at his face and bleeding from places he’d scratched himself down there. He was a mess, Ash, and he needs help. What he did, no matter how it makes me feel, has to be more than proof of that.”

Emily snorts. “Yeah, no sane person thinks something like that is, like, a thing that people do anywhere but on TV.”

“Whatever,” Ashley mutters, crossing her arms like an afterthought. “I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive him. If Chris doesn’t deck him the next time he sees him, _I’ll_ do it.”

Sam grimaces. “Depends on which one of them gets out of the hospital bed first.”

The ride to the hospital is tense. They’re down the mountain, so Emily can grab her car with a ride from the officials and take them straight there without a Park Ranger escort, but Ashley isn’t looking at Sam and Emily is careful to focus on driving. No one speaks. Sam is only surprised it hadn’t gone quiet sooner.

The nurse on duty at the front desk points them in multiple directions. Predictably, Ashley heads immediately for Chris’ room. Emily hesitates a moment, then heads for Matt’s room with an unreadable expression on her face.

“What about you, pumpkin?” asks the nurse, though the only indication that he is one is the scrubs and the nametag, between his tattoos and the shaved sides of his head. “You know how to get to where you’re going?”

Sam takes a moment to think about going to see Mike and Jess, to make sure they’re okay, but she has the flash of a thought, an image of Josh strapped to a bed like he’s in some inhumane asylum, and nearly chokes on the bile that rises in the back of her throat. “Um, actually, I was wondering if I could see Joshua Washington? Is he--Can I see him?” It suddenly feels desperately important that she see him, with her own two eyes, know that she could reach out and touch him. 

The nurse clicks through the computer behind the desk. “Hmm, Joshua Washi--Ah! Here he is. Uh,” he pauses, eyes flicking up to her, back to the computer, and up to her again, “he’s in the psych ward in the south wing of the building, you alright to find your way down there on your own?”

She nods furiously. “Yeah, yeah I’m good. There’s the coloured markers on the wall, right? No problem.”

“Alright, honey, take it easy. Visitors are only allowed down there for another forty-five minutes, don’t stick around too long if he needs to sleep.”

More nodding as she turns away. “Yeah, of course. Thank you,” and she’s gone, tearing down the hallway, ducking and weaving around professionals and patients alike.

Suddenly time is against her, the Wendigo at her heels again, waiting for her to trip into its waiting jaws. As though if she doesn’t make it to Josh in time, she won’t be able to help him. If she gives him any time on his own he’ll become what Hannah became.

She knocks on his open door, finds the room is a single bed occupied just by him. He turns to look at her slowly, his eyes blinking like molasses, lethargic and out of sync. “Hey, there, buddy,” she says finally, quietly, the peace of the room disturbed by her and her heavy breaths.

“Hiya, pal,” he slurs back at her, but it’s so good to see him anything other than anxious and jittery that she can’t seem to care.

Sam steps in, carrying a chair to his bedside and sitting down heavily. “Hey,” she says again, smiling without meaning to. “You doing alright? Seeing everything clearly?”

Josh laughs at her, though it sounds like someone’s taken the noise and slowed it down fifty percent. “S’that your way of asking if ‘m still seeing the twins?”

“No, no, I just--”

Chuckles, now. “S’okay, Sammy-baby. They’ve dosed me up! I ain’t no danger to no people now. Ain’t seen Hannah-Beth since the mountain. You’re all,” he slurs more, sweeping his hands in small arcs through the air above his stomach, “perfec’ly safe. From me, anyway. No promises about flesh-eating moun’ain demons.”

Her hand is grasping his before she thinks about it. “Josh, you weren’t a danger to us, but... But you did some things that really scared us. Scared me. You did things I know you wouldn’t have done if you were being taken care of properly, if you were handling everything the best you could. And maybe that’s my fault. Maybe I should have been there for you more, or better. But...” She’s not thinking clearly, she’s so exhausted and frustrated, and it’s been so long since she slept, but she can’t stop herself. “You need to own up to that. What you did... it has an explanation. It doesn’t have an excuse.”

“But I was so bad,” he whispers, on a whine, and he’s not looking at her. “I did so many bad things, Sammy. What if... What if owning up to that isn’ enough? ‘I’m sorry’ ain’ gonna do no one no good. It won’t... s’not gonna make what I did not happen. I’ve hurt everyone so much already, stickin’ around would hurt you more. I don’t want to hurt you, Sammy.”

She swallows around whatever is choking her, and nods. “I know, buddy, but... It’s not just about what you want. It’s about what the rest of us need. And we need to know that you understand what you did, and why it was bad, and why we’re mad at you, and... I know--There are people who can... who can help you come to terms with that. I know some great people--”

Instantly, Josh tries to curl up, ends up hunching and flinching instead. “M’not going back to Doctor Hill. He didn--”

“No, no,” Sam says, patting his hand. He relaxes, and rolls on his side toward her, curling like a bracket to face her. “No, if you don’t want to see him, you won’t. But...”

“You’re gonna see someone.”

She nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna talk to someone. We all should. What we went through... it was horrible. And you’ve been through so much more than the rest of us. Please, as much as you can right now...” and here she squeezes his hand, like she did before, like she did in the caves with him, and his eyes get sharper with it, “and I’m gonna come back again and again until I make sure you’re promising me properly, but--Josh. Please, promise me you’ll see... someone, about all this? All of it. So that you can apologize. So that you can own your wrongs and do better in the future. Okay?”

Josh pouts, bringing her hand toward his face. “No one is gonna believe us, Sammy. Monsters aren’ real.”

A sigh eases out of her, and Josh looks up at her like he’s worried he’s said the wrong thing. She squeezes his hand again. “Then we don’t tell them about the monsters. Or we do, but we make it a metaphor. Who the fuck knows, everything is... messed up right now! But the rest of it: we tell professionals. And not people who are just going to medicate us with wild abandon.”

He presses her knuckles to his head, and she feels her face heat though she knows between painkillers and anti-anxiety meds, he has no idea what he’s doing. “Meds helped me b’fore. Are they bad?”

“No, buddy. They’re not bad. Not when they’re used with... other--other strategies and approaches and whatever. To get at the root of the problems.” His breathing comes soft and regular on the tips of her fingers, and she smiles down at him. “No. Meds aren’t bad. You aren’t bad. Not in your heart.”

“Thank you,” he mutters against her hand, and she can feel him drift into sleep. Without her permission, her hand lifts up and traces the curve of his head, smoothing his hair down. He relaxes with each pass of her palm, a gentle breath easing out of him like he’d been holding onto it for years. Maybe a single year.

A knock comes at the door, and an older nurse smiles at her. “He finally asleep?”

Sam nods. “Yeah, he just went out.”

“Hallelujah,” the nurse whispers, raising her hands to the heavens. “We’ve been trying to get him to sleep for hours. Kept saying he was waiting for someone. To apologize, I think?” Sam watches her put two and two together. “You get your forgiveness on with him?”

He whimpers when she stops petting his head, but she doesn’t touch him again. “Uh, no, not yet. No. I wouldn’t have wanted it right now anyway. It needs to come from a fully conscious place.”

The nurse nods. “Well, I can’t say I don’t respect that. Hopefully that’s sooner than later.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, making for the door with an eye over her shoulder, “hopefully.”


	2. our mouths only lying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mild warning for suicidal ideation this chapter

“Oh! Sam, over here!”

Over the heads of the lunch rush, Sam catches Ashley’s hand waving, and returns the gesture until they can reach each other. “Man, could the world stop being so tall and get on our level?”

“Right? I feel so small all the time, it’s ridiculous.”

Sam grins. “I’m sure dating Chris doesn’t help.”

They sit and Ashley puts her head in her hands. “Yeah, no. The dude is a giant, and doesn’t know how to not lord it over me. He puts things I need above the fridge _all_ the time. I can’t bake if he’s not home because he puts the flour on the highest shelf! Someone oughta get that guy a sense of humour.”

“Totally.”

The cafe is where they meet, as close to once a week as they can manage, just the two of them. It’s different from the times they go out with Jess and Emily, and intensely less awkward than when they try to hang out with Mike and Matt anymore, although the two seem to be getting along better than they were before. It’s just the two of them, closer than they were before the twins, and more honest than they were before their most recent excursion to the Blackwood Lodge.

“I heard you and Chris started going to therapy together, huh?” Sam asks, as the waitress brings them their orders and she can finally get a bit of caffeine in her system.

Ashley nods through a sip of hot chocolate. “Oh, yep. We, uh... well. You don’t need the details, but things were getting rough, and we thought therapy was the best way to handle it before it got... to be too much.”

Sam scoffs. “You mean before you ended up like the other two couples.”

She shrugs, but she’s smiling weakly in a way that means she thinks Sam’s right. “We were... almost literally forged in fire, so I think Chris and I can handle a lot, but. I’d like to take all the care we can. I want us to... last, y’know?”

“Yeah, Ash. I know.”

They take a moment to pick at their scones and talk about nothing; they talk about their jobs and the weather and the local soccer team Sam’s started playing for. Ashley mentions picking up knitting, and suggests a bunch of birthday gifts Sam might get in the coming years, adorably earnest and eager to share her creations. They talk about Chris’ programming work, and his mild internet fame over the horror games he can play unfazed on YouTube.

“I don’t know how he can do it. Sometimes, his door will be open just a crack and I’ll hear something and won’t breathe right for twenty minutes. He’ll have to pause and come help me, and then I just feel guilty.”

Sam sighs and flicks some pumpkin seeds from her scone around on her little plate. “You cope differently. You redirect away, he exposes himself to make himself stronger. They’re both valid.”

Ashley fidgets, and Sam braces herself. “Speaking of coping...”

“No, Ash. He’s not ready.”

“Oh, come on!” Ashley pleads. “Chris is chomping at the bit to let bygones be, isn’t that a good thing? No one talks to him anymore except you. I mean, we all assume you’re together, but it kinda hurts that he won’t come out to--”

Suddenly Sam wishes she had bailed, or maybe never remained as close to Ashley. “We’re not together.”

“Not that that would be a bad thing! We want you both to be happy, whatever you choose, it’s just--”

“We’re not together because he’s not getting the help he needs yet.”

Ashley arches an eyebrow. “But I thought you said he was back on his meds?”

The surface of the table looks inviting. Sam wonders how much attention she would draw smashing her face into it. “Yeah, but meds are half the battle. He’s had trouble with therapy before, and he’s reluctant to try it again. I can’t be his therapist. I won’t. I owe it to myself not to.”

Ashley sighs. “Oh-kay. That makes sense, I can’t argue with you there. I hope he can work it out.” She chews her lip, twirls a lock of hair around her finger. “Don’t... Don’t tell Chris this, but... I think we both miss him. He was important to all of us, before things went screwy.”

Sam smiles at her, though not without pain. “I know. I miss him too.”

Later, when she’s left the cafe and finished work, and she’s cozy at home on the couch watching Project Runway because nothing else is on, she gets a call. She knows the number well.

She lets it ring for a few minutes, before she caves and grabs it. “What.”

“Wow! Jesus, Sam. Haven’t you ever been told that a little warmth goes a long way?”

“Cut the crap, Josh. What do you want?”

He sighs on the end of the line, crackly and tinny and Sam tries not to cave in more. “Yeesh, we’re pushy today. ‘Hey, Josh, how was your day? Oh, that’s so great to hear! Me? Oh, my day was just the usual, just cozying up with my Netflix account which I love more than you,’” he says, pitching his voice up and affecting a lisp. He cuts it out when Sam says nothing. He coughs. “I uh... actually, I was calling for a favour.”

“If it involves alcohol, you can stuff your self-medication right back up your--”

“No! No, it’s...” a heavier, deeper sigh, and Sam feels herself relaxing. “It’s not an alcohol favour. I don’t wanna be that guy anymore. You made a good point last time--”

“I always make a good point.”

“... I won’t argue that. You do. But what cut through the hangover haze was mostly that... I’m really not doing so great, so. I thought I’d finally bite the bullet.”

It hangs between them like a damp blanket, soaking with all the things they don’t say. “Which bullet in particular?” she asks.

“Not a real one, Sam.”

She pointedly does not laugh. It’s not funny. It hasn’t been funny for months.

“The therapy bullet. I--My th--fuck. I made an appointment. Is what I’m saying.”

“That’s great,” Sam says, without warmth. She’s heard this before. “When do I get the drunk phone call saying you’re off your meds again?”

“Sam, please, I ne--”

The phone shakes with her hand. “I need this to not be a platitude about to come out of your mouth, Josh. I need it to be real. I need you to mean it this time.”

It’s the constant unspoken wall between them. The apology he still hasn’t given. The commitments he never keeps. The effort he doesn’t seem to put in. It surprises even her that she’s hung on this long. How much she keeps waiting for him.

“I know,” he says, seriously, for the first time. “That’s why I was calling to ask you... Would you come with me? To this first meeting? Make sure I go, keep me honest, hold my hand when I start crying like a baby--” he says, his genuine feeling quickly dissolving into laughter and jest, and Sam scrambles.

“Of course. Of course I will. Give me the time and place.”

And so, at three o’clock the next day, Sam finds herself in front of a Doctor Bellamy’s office building, waiting for Josh to show up. For the sixth time in the past twenty minutes she looks at her phone to see the dozen or so messages she’s sent Josh to make sure he actually plans on showing up, all with reassuring replies peppered with just enough innuendo and speculation about whether his doctor will be hot or not to reassure Sam that it is, indeed, Josh responding.

When she looks up next, Josh’s Beamer is pulling into one of the spots near her own car, and he climbs out with such bravado and excessive swagger that Sam knows he’s nervous. “Hey there, Sammy. Ready to send me to the firing squad?”

She eyes him, then makes for the front doors of the building. “Stop that. Come on, his office is on the fourth floor.”

She makes them take the stairs, mostly because physical exertion keeps Josh’s mouth shut, and elevates her heart rate enough to distract herself. When they arrive on the landing, he grabs the door for her and ushers her through, scoffing when she hardly looks at him to pass through the threshold.

The space itself is fairly tasteful, for a therapist’s waiting room. There are magazines lying about that even she can get behind, and a flatscreen is mounted on a wall and playing some soap opera with closed captioning on.

Josh, because he’s awful, finds everything wrong. “Aw, come on, there’s not even a fish tank? What am I supposed to terrorize while I wait?”

Sam takes a seat and picks up a magazine. “Meeting is gonna be quick since it’s your first, right? Half an hour or so?”

He deflates, flicking at the corner of a stand of pamphlets on the secretary’s unattended counter. “Yeah. Should be. You can go home now if you want. You don’t need to stick around.”

“Nope,” she says simply, and turns a page.

“I, uh. O-okay.”

The door to the therapist’s office opens and a fairly young man’s head leans out. “Joshua Washington?” he asks, gently.

Josh points two thumbs at himself. “That would be this guy, chief.”

“Excellent, come on in and have a seat.”

He backs into the office, and as he does, Josh gives Sam two thumbs up with a wild grin. _He’s hot!_ he mouths, and then the door shuts and he’s gone for nearly an hour.

Sam sits and she waits for him, the minutes ticking by slowly, but her anger relenting with every one of them. She picks up a magazine and flicks through it, scrolls through her Twitter feed and Instagram on her phone, and when the door opens again, looks up to see Josh return. “How’d it go?”

He, strangely, seems surprised to see her, then he ducks his head and scratches at his neck. “It, uh... it went. Like we should. Let’s get out of here, do you want lunch?”

\-----

It’s the only meeting of his she ever gets invited to. After that, he goes on his own and rarely talks to her about it. Which she is mostly fine with, except...

Except she’s beginning to wonder if he remembers the promise he made her, the apology she’s still waiting for. It’s eating her up, this desperation for some absolution from him, and the terror of thinking that he maybe won’t ever be able to give it to her. Not like she wants him to.

And then, out of the blue, Josh basically stops texting her at all. He’ll respond to her messages, but they’re single words, or clipped sentences that leave Sam feeling bereft and lost without the jokes and jibes that rile her up.

“Sam, you’ve been looking at that top for, like, six years now. Are you going to buy it, or are you hoping you can, like... download it from your brain later, or whatever?”

Sam looks up at Jess and smirks. “Ha ha,” she drones, no humour in it, and Jess mocks her immediately. “No, I was just... Gah, my brain has been somewhere else all day, can we give up on shopping for the rest of the day? I don’t even like anything here.”

Jess looks forlornly at the cardigan she was eyeing and sighs. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s never had the same appeal since... Well, since I got out of the hospital. Ugh, okay, whatever, we should be meeting everyone for dinner soon anyway, let’s go.”

Right. Six months since that night on the mountain, six months since everything went wrong, a year and a half since their lives were normal. It was Chris who suggested it, and mostly Ashley who convinced everyone to show up. Or... almost everyone. Josh hadn’t said anything when she mentioned it, just shrugged and mentioned something about his parents being worried about him. She knows a redirection when she sees one, so she’d left well enough alone and dropped the topic.

So, she and Jess wrap up their business at the shops in the downtown core of Vancouver, and make for one of the delicate suburbs just a few minutes out from where they’ve been spending their time. Chris and Ashley had offered to host the whole thing, potluck-style, at their new house, since the rest of them had not yet been to see them in it. The brownies Sam made and the pasta salad Jess begged her mom to give her the recipe for sit in anticipation in the trunk of Jessica’s SUV while they make their way there.

“I don’t know why we have to mark the half-year, you know?” Jess says after about five minutes of looking troubled, biting her lip, and dancing around it.

Sam rubs at her face. “I know. It’s weird. But Chris thought it would be a good idea, and Ash got so excited, and it’s been so long since we all got together that... maybe it’s the right thing to do? Hash things out, or avoid it entirely... see if we can even handle each other anymore?”

“Shouldn’t that have been obvious when two of the three couples involved split?” Jess snorts, but she’s long since lost the venom about it. She and Mike were never going to last, and she loves to mention now how much better of a gossip buddy Emily makes than a frenemy. Sam chuckles, not knowing how to rebutt that. “And anyway, I think the weirdest part is going to be Josh showing up after, like, six months of not talking to any of us. Except you, I guess.”

That cuts through Sam’s mirth to the quick. “What?”

Carefully, Jess chances a look toward the passenger seat. “Did he... not tell you? Oh, my God, shit--I am so sorry, I shouldn’t have said anythi--”

“No,” Sam assures her, but braces a hand on the door handle beside her. “No, it’s fine. I was going to find out anyway, I’m... actually kind of glad to go in with a warning so I don’t ruin everything by being fucking pissed.”

“Fuck, I should have kept my mouth shut... I just assumed--I mean, since you were the only one he spoke to, I figured you’d be the first person he’d tell--”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Sam breathes. She has to think hard about it, but she breathes. “Nevermind, Jess. It’s fine. I’m good.”

Jess only bites her lip again. “Um, yeah. Sure, okay.”

And she is good, from the time it takes them to park on the side of the street to the time they pass Josh’s Beamer, and then again from the time they knock on the door and are invited in, to the time Sam walks into the living room and Josh pointedly leaves.

But it’s not about her and Josh, it’s not about what’s going on there. This is about all eight of them, about trying to patch everything that broke that night. Or most everything. She and Josh can clearly wait.

“I’m... I’m really glad you guys could all come,” Chris says, with his arm looped loosely around Ashley’s waist, shortly after everyone arrives -- Mike and Matt are the last to show up, having carpooled together and surprising everyone. “I know I set this up kind of last minute, but it means a lot that we all took this seriously.”

“Yeah, because last time we all got invited somewhere together it was totally harmless,” Matt says, and the atmosphere plummets.

Mike brandishes an elbow directly into Matt’s side. “Dude. Not tonight, okay?”

Josh fidgets. “He’s not wrong,” he says, picking at his nail beds, and Sam sees -- for the briefest moment -- all of the scratches and marks Josh had when she found him in the mines.

“He’s not, but this isn’t the time, or the place. I don’t want to spend tonight pointing fingers, I want to spend tonight like we might have if everything hadn’t happened like it did, okay?” says, surprisingly, Emily. She tucks her hair behind her ear, refusing to look at Matt properly.

Matt relaxes, visibly, and relents. “You’re right. I’m sorry. We can hash this out another time.”

Music plays in the background, from some other room, maybe even from the kitchen, and Ashley claps her hands together through the silence. “Okay, so, who was in charge of hors d’oeuvres? Shall we crack those open, maybe a couple of bottles of wine?”

“I’ll take a glass of red, yeah,” Jess says, on a slight chuckle, clearly relieved to get to a subject she’s comfortable with.

“You got any beer, buddy?” Mike asks, and Chris shoots finger guns at him and gestures for him to follow Ashley. “You want one, Matty?”

Matt shrugs. “Sure, dude. I trust your judgement, grab me whatever.”

Chris points to Josh. “You, bud?”

Sam watches him, surprised to see a look of regret cross his features. “Ah, you know what? Not for me, man. I, uh... haven’t exactly proven myself great at moderation, so. I shouldn’t.”

“Bro, you know you can crash here, right? This middle-class bullshit has a guest room, we could make up the bed for you,” Chris offers, looking for his part only microscopically uncomfortable with the idea.

Josh grins. “And listen to you and your Missus getting freaky all night? No way, dude. And, uh... yeah, I just--I don’t trust myself with alcohol right now. Maybe ever?” he says with uncertainty, and his eyes cut away to Sam. She can’t read his look, and maybe doesn’t want to.

“Sure, dude. I support you. Can I get you something that won’t leave you sloshed then?”

“Yeah, man, an iced tea would be stellar.”

Chris shoots more finger guns, Josh feigns a fatal wound, and they both manage to keep their discomfort with the display off their faces until neither is looking anymore.

Sam can’t help herself. “Admirable,” she states.

He rubs at his neck, ducking his head like he did at the therapist’s. “Just the right thing to do.”

Restraint continues to _not_ be something she has tonight. “Oh, cool, so you _do_ know right from wrong. My bad.”

“Sam--” he starts, but Emily rescues them.

“Sammy, you came with Jess, right? You can have a glass or two, can’t you?”

Lifting herself off the couch, Sam puts her arm around Emily’s shoulder and walks back to the kitchen. “Totally. Just make sure Jess keeps it to one, okay?”

The dinner part of ‘dinner’ goes... pretty well, actually. She’s not seated next to Josh, nor is she seated somewhere where making eye contact with him happens every time she looks up, so she considers it a win from the get go. Chris and Mike commiserate about work woes, Matt talks about playing football for a local team in between two jobs, and Emily bemoans her parents getting on her ass about a Masters degree. Jess complains about working in a mall at the cosmetics counter, Ashley talks about her volunteer job at the local animal shelter, and Josh carefully avoids any topics that could lead back to that night in particular. Sam, for her part, talks mostly about the hilarious messes that happen while teaching rock climbing classes part-time, and congratulates herself on keeping the friendly atmosphere.

The music is back on, or louder than it was at dinner anyway, and they’re spread between sitting in the living room, some drinking, some not; and doing the dishes in the kitchen. Sam and Chris are washing and drying while Ashley puts away, and the rest are down in the living room laughing and enjoying themselves. They’ve succeeded in bringing back what it was like to hang out together before everything got busted up.

“Honestly, I am surprised it’s going this well,” Chris says conspiratorially as he dries a platter. “I half expected Emily and Matt to be at each other’s throats, or Matt and Mike.”

Sam smirks at him. “You know, me too? I thought everyone would have been _way_ uncomfortable with Josh showing up.”

Chris nods, grabbing a dripping knife from her carefully. “Yeah, but I mean... his apologies really went a long way to making things better. I’m pretty sure he drafted each one of them individually, Matt said his was pretty heartfelt, although you wouldn’t be able to tell with how he--”

“Wait, wait,” Sam says, dropping her cloth into the bubbly water. “He apologized to you? And Matt?”

The look that crosses Chris’ face is exactly like the look that crossed Jess’. “You mean he didn’t apologize to you too? Sam, he apologized to everyone.”

She grips the counter, watching her knuckles go white. “Not everyone.” She turns, seeing Ashley looking concerned, staring over her shoulder at Chris who must be looking the same. “Ash, can I get you to take over washing for a minute?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, but marches to the end of the kitchen, turning down the hall and making for the ground floor bathroom. She tries not to slam the door, but she’s honestly not sure if she succeeds.


	3. what can we say now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here comes the catharsis. chapter warnings for discussion of sexual abuse and humiliation, canon compliant use of ableist term, and discussion of experiencing anxiety, psychosis and paranoia
> 
> again, i only experience psychotic symptoms with extreme anxiety attacks, and not with any regularity. if you take issue with my portrayal or narrative decisions please [drop me a line](tinytinychopper.tumblr.com/ask) and we can talk.

She’s seeing red for so long that Sam doesn’t actually know how long she’s been in the bathroom until she hears the knocking.

“Sam? Sam, are you okay?” Josh asks, through the door, and it comes slamming right back to her.

She stands from the toilet, wrenches the door open, and looks up at Josh’s dumbstruck face. He looks honestly surprised to see her mad, and that’s even more frustrating. “Upstairs,” she says, pointing.

“What?”

“We do this upstairs, or we don’t do it at all. Your choice.”

She expects him to leave, to escape and not try, but he grabs her hand and pulls her out of the bathroom and makes for the stairs.

When they’re in a guest room with the door mostly closed, he turns to her with his arms crossed. Not like he’s mad, but like he’s trying to make himself smaller. She wishes the sight were enough to quell her anger. “Do you have anything to say to me?” she asks.

Josh rubs his arms, not looking at her, and he starts, slowly, “Sam, look, I didn’t want--”

“No!” she shouts, and she feels tears prick at her eyes and feels useless for crying when she’s mad. “No, this isn’t about what you want anymore, Josh. It’s about what you’re avoiding, and why. I don’t care what makes you comfortable, I don’t care what makes it easier for you. I need something from you, something you’ve given everyone else under this roof tonight, something that you’ve apparently decided I don’t need. Why? What did I do?”

“That’s not why I haven’t, Sam, please--”

“Then why!” she says, but it sounds more like a plea. “Have I been too clingy? Did I hover too much? Am I making too big a deal out of it?”

She watches him curl into himself again, a ghost from that night, and she sits down on the bed and presses her face into her hands. “You stole my clothes, Josh. You stole my clothes and then you filmed me in the bath. Do you know what that does to a person?”

“Sam, I didn’t--”

Sam looks at him, and she pretends like the tears aren’t running down her cheeks. She is fierce and avenging, and with her hair in its messy bun, she’s sure she looks unstable. Perhaps because she _is_. “I still check, you know. Every time I go to shower. Every time I run a bath. I had blackout curtains installed everywhere in my apartment, and if there’s even a chance of me taking my clothes off, I make sure those are closed.”

He’s looking at her now, like he can’t take his eyes away, and that burns her more than anything. That it takes her spilling her guts to him about all the ways he’s ruined her for him to pay attention. 

She stands, and steps towards him again. “I haven’t been with anyone since that night, because I think someone might be taping me. I think the person I’m with might be taping me. I can’t get drunk, because if I don’t have my wits about me then I can’t be on the look-out for blinking red lights.”

“Sam...” he whispers, and she’s right next to him, right in front of him, looking up at him and wondering what it is that she’s seeing in his eyes.

“I’m so scared, all the time, and it’s fucked me up because I’m not even scared of monsters now. It wasn’t the monsters that scared me.” She reaches up, her hands sliding up his chest, curling around his neck, cupping his cheeks between them. “It was you. You scared me. I’m afraid that if I take my eyes off of you for one second, you’re going to get lost again. Lost like you were down there. What sort of saviour complex bullshit is that?”

Sam isn’t startled when he leans down. Or maybe he doesn’t lean down, but she pulls him down. Either way, he’s kissing her, or she’s kissing him; they’re kissing each other, and it tastes like the tears on her face. It’s hot and salty and uncomfortable, but it’s everything that’s been building between them.

Josh’s hands slip down her sides to the small of her back, and he leans down into it to kiss her properly, her arms wrapping around his neck to keep him against her. He breathes in and their bodies press together like someone molded them that way, she breathes out and then he’s pulling away and they’re both gasping. “This isn’t--I don’t--” he starts.

Taking steps away is hard, but Sam manages. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve--”

“No,” he says, quiet but firm, and he’s looking at her again with an unreadable expression. “No, you are not the one who’s supposed to be apologizing here.”

“You’re not wrong.”

He grins at her, but it’s cut with something sincere. “I can’t. Not right now. I want to, I really, _really_ want to. But you need something from me, and I promised that I would only give it to you when it was coming from the right place, and...” he sighs, hugely, and then one of his thumbs is gently brushing away the tears that she refuses to acknowledge are still falling. “And I’m not in the right place yet. For any of this.”

Two more steps and she’s out of his reach, and she lifts her hands to wipe the rest of her tears away. “Okay. Okay, yeah. You’re right.” She sniffs, and casts around the room to find a convenient box of tissues on the nightstand. She blows her nose unattractively, and turns back on him. “Why not me? If you’re not in the right place to be apologizing, why are you apologizing to everyone else?”

“None of them took the time to make me promise to get help, none of them made sure that I was lucid before they asked me to be in their lives again.” Sam opens her mouth to protest, but he holds up a hand. “None of them need the kind of apology I want to give you.”

“So, what? I’m special? I ask for too much?”

“No, no... Sam, you ask for more and then make me want to _be_ more. In the best way! I’m just... mostly less right now. And I want to do you proud, go through therapy like I need to and then be with you like I desperately want to when I’m done!”

Sam scowls. “Therapy isn’t a race, Josh! There is no ‘done’!”

He rubs at his face, groaning deep and long. “You’re right. I know. There’s no being done. It’s a constant struggle... but Doctor Bellamy and I haven’t gotten around to untangling the mess of shit that is how I feel about you, and I feel like I need help understanding all of it before... before I end up forcing you to deal with me figuring it out around you.”

There’s no argument there. He’s being smart, and careful, and Sam’s not totally sure when anger and affection became so synonymous when it comes to Josh, but she’s feeling both things at once right now. “Alright then. So what now?”

Josh laughs. “Now we pretend like we didn’t just smash our faces together, head back down to that party, and try not to make our friends super fucking uncomfortable.”

“Well,” she chuckles, “we’re going to fail at least one of those things.”

She’s already walking for the door, but he grabs her arm gently, and turns her to face him. “And after that, when I’m ready...”

Smirking at him is easy, like muscle memory reminding her how it used to be. “You’ll play a classic 80’s hit from a boombox under my window?”

This time, she is surprised when he draws her in and presses their lips together again, quick but way less than chaste, and over before she knows what’s happening. “Shit, okay, I know I’m sending mixed signals, and I won’t do it again, but holy shit, don’t surprise me with movie cliches. You know how those get me riled up.”

She pats his chest. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They head back downstairs and Sam does her best not to notice how the conversation in the living room stops as they reach the main floor. She walks over to where the rest of their friends are sitting and grins. “Oh, come on now. Have we really grown so apart that we stop talking shit about each other when we enter a room?”

Emily starts to make an excuse, but Ashley pipes up, “Are you and Josh okay? It’s not going to be weird, is it? If he’s being awful, we can do this another time, or something--”

“Ash, don’t worry,” Josh says as he comes up behind Sam. “We--”

“We figured everything out. No weirdness,” Sam finishes for him, and sits down on the far side of Jess and Emily on the couch, with no space for Josh on either side of her.

He nods, and steps down to lounge against the wall. “Yeah, all’s quiet on the Western Front, guys. Nothing to worry about.”

It doesn’t really convince anyone in the room, but the conversation gradually moves away from them, and the night continues. People start leaving around midnight, and Jess drives Sam home shortly after, and everyone labels the night a success, and they tell each other they’ll do it again soon. Some of them even actually mean it.

When she finally makes it up to her apartment and all her blinds are drawn for the night, Sam checks her phone and finds a series of messages from Josh waiting for her.

**dont you by simple minds will be the signal**

**uh wait ur on the 6th floor aintcha?**

**shit**

**will playing it outside ur door work? or is that like... 2 much?**

She finds herself giggling, and flops onto her bed with her phone in hand to read them over again. She sends him back: **bit much, yeah. but then, you are also a bit much, so i think it probably evens out.**

The response is immediate. **im buying a boombox off ebay 4 this u better appreciate it**

She falls asleep with her phone in her hand, still in her clothes from dinner, and she doesn’t even worry about her bedroom blinds being open.

\-----

Sam will never admit to waiting to hear an obnoxious boombox and equally obnoxious singing every time she hears someone coming up to her door for the next three weeks, but the fact is that she _is_ waiting, so she’s predictably disappointed when the first pair of steps to stop outside her door belong to someone who knocks. Still, even if she’ll never tell anyone, she holds out hope until she opens the door.

“Uh, hey,” Chris says with a little wave. “I hope I’m not, like... intruding?”

Sam shakes her head a bit. “Oh, uh. No, not at all. Come on in.”

Chris scratches where his glasses rest against the side of his face. “Actually, I was wondering if we could go out? Like for coffee, or maybe to one of the food trucks around here or something.”

“Um,” Sam says, casting about for her phone and purse, “sure? Why not. I don’t have anything on until work tonight, so. Sure, let’s go, I know a cute little pho truck down in Stanley Park.”

“Awesome,” says Chris, and they head down and out and into the city.

The August heat is beginning to die down as September rolls around the corner, but everyone they pass is still in denial, wearing shorts and tank tops and sandals and not worrying about the coming chill. The food truck doesn’t have a huge line, and they sit at the little wooden tables they put out under the trees, facing the water.

“This place is great!” Chris says around a mouth of noodles, and Sam can’t help laughing at him. “How did I not know about this place when we were all here?”

“University never really allowed for time to take you guys out to neat little food trucks. Besides, no one would come with me except Hannah. I managed to drag Ash out here _once_.”

Chris takes another mouthful of noodles in. “Well, you’ve been holding out. I’m gonna have to take Ash out here next time we’re downtown together.”

She smiles at him, carefully taking a bite of her pho. “You better. She loved this place.”

They eat mostly in silence for a bit while Sam lets Chris broach the subject he wanted to talk to her about, and Chris deftly avoids it. When he starts talking about getting fresh rolls, Sam drops a hand onto the table pointedly.

“Chris,” she says, side-eyeing him. “What did you drag me out for? I don’t work until five, I could have been bingeing on Parks and Rec this whole time.”

The sun is out and there are birds chirping in the trees. It’s the time of day when Sam feels safest, everyone milling about while light shines on them and illuminates everything. Night was never her favourite time of day, but when the dead of the night comes she can’t sit still anymore.

“I was, uh... actually, I wanted to talk about Josh.”

That’s maybe a discussion she should have expected. “Oh, sure. What about him? Have you seen him lately?”

Chris nods. “Yeah, he came by to have dinner with Ash and I the other night. He’s... he’s doing really well. It’s like having my best friend back again, if I’d known back before everything just how alone with his grief he was. He’s not perfect, obviously. He has bad moments, and he had to leave early because he could feel his meds wearing off, but, I mean. It was good.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Chris, that is fantastic news, but... Why are you telling me?” she asks, stirring her pho with a chopstick.

He clears his throat, staring into his pho like it has the answers he’s asking her for. “Just...” He looks up at her, strangely pleading and desperate. “Sammy, he’s trying. He’s trying so hard, and I just think that... you know, you oughta--maybe you should give him a break, y’know?”

Carefully and slowly, Sam eats a mouthful of pho, taking her time to get the noodles into her mouth with as little broth spillage as possible. Chris, for his part, looks uncomfortable. “Did he tell you I wasn’t giving him a break? Or is this you inferring something that wasn’t implied?” Her gaze, when it finally slides to him, is sly, and Chris fidgets.

“Well, I mean... he didn’t say anything like that in so many words, but you two--”

“Chris, honey,” Sam says, laying her chopsticks across the top of the plastic bowl the truck uses, “you know I love you, and cherish you as a friend, and that I value your opinion on everything except what makes a good joke and what is frankly not funny at all, right?”

Chris fiddles with his pho. Sam has half a mind to scold him for it. “Sure I do.”

“Then know I say this with the utmost care and affection: Get your nose out of my goddamn business, alright?”

“Okay, that’s totally valid, and I deserved that, but Sam! Everything is difficult for him, and you giving him a hard time won’t make it any--”

Sam pitches herself back in her seat, staring up into the blue sky to watch the seagulls circle the shoreline. “Oh! My god, Chris! I’m not giving him a hard time, is what I’m trying to _fucking_ tell you!” That shuts him up, and he leans back as well, crossing his arms and pouting slightly. “Not that it’s information you have any right to, but for the record, it’s Josh who’s imposing these rigorous standards on himself. And frankly, I’m opposed to them! I wish he could cut _himself_ a break, if you’re asking me, which you clearly weren’t.”

Luckily, Chris has the space of mind to look contrite. “Yeah, that was...”

“Not super great of you?”

He laughs. “Yeah, not really.”

Sam joins him, resting a cheek in her palm as she comes to lean over the table again. “Seriously, don’t you think I know that that boy has been through enough already? He doesn’t need me setting the bar so far over his head on top of everything else.”

Chris rubs the back of his neck, looking down at the paving stones that cover the area where the food truck stops in the afternoons. “Nah, you’re right. And, honestly, maybe it’s good that he has someone to hold himself accountable to, you know? Like, other than me, I mean. ‘Cause I don’t really count, with Ashley and everything...”

“Should I be concerned, Christopher?”

He clears his throat again, but this time it’s to cover a distinct flush to his cheeks. “Look, it was middle school, neither of us were getting any from the girls, we were terrified of being bad kissers...”

Sam nearly howls with laughter. “Oh my God, Chris! That is so not what I meant, you don’t need to share something like that with me! Jesus, dude, that is so your business.”

The flush on his cheeks deepens. “Well, uh. Fuck it. I guess we’re even then? I stuck my nose in your business, it’s only fair that your nose get stuck in mine, right?”

A seagull lands on a table next to them and chatters. “I didn’t ask for this,” Sam says through a chuckle.

They part ways when Chris finally finishes his pho and walks her back to her apartment. He gives her a peck on the cheek and a pat on the shoulder, and she kisses him back twice and tells him to give one to Ash for her. The inside of the apartment building is a cool respite from the heat of the sun and the harsh wind off the ocean, and the elevator is blessedly empty when she takes it up.

The doors open to her floor and let in a soft, muffled music that she’s sure is coming from one of her neighbours, except that when she turns down her hall, the music gets louder.

When she rounds on her door, her heart kicks up the pace, tripping into triple time when she sees a boombox on the floor and hears a strangled voice trying to sing along. It’s not Don’t You by Simple Minds, but it _is_ still some 80’s classic that she can’t place right now, and Josh is so determined in his serenade that she can’t bring herself to tell him that there’s no one in her apartment right away.

Eventually, though, one of her cranky neighbours has enough. He pokes his head out with a scowl. “She ain’t in, you dingbat! Screw off and run your mouth elsewhere!”

So she figures it’s a great time to swoop in. “Aw, come on, Artie! Don’t you think he was great? I feel like I should be paying for that performance!”

Artie looks unimpressed. “Whatever. Get your boyfriend out of the hall and shut him up, Callaghan. I’m sure you can think of some way to do that.”

“... How much did you see,” Josh whispers, mortified.

“Enough,” Sam says, grinning and ushering him into her room. “Sorry for the disturbance, Artie.”

Artie just grunts and shuts his door, locking it pointedly.

Josh loiters in the hall a bit, staring at the door. “I think he likes me,” he says with confidence, all earlier embarrassment completely absent from his face.

Sam rolls her eyes. “Alright, whatever, big shot. Are you coming in, or are you just going to stand out there forever?”

“Why, Samantha,” he says, batting his eyelashes way too much and sauntering into her apartment, “how indecent of you, inviting a young bachelor unsupervised into your abode. What will the gossip columns say come tomorrow? Have you no shame?”

“Apparently I’ve got more than you, so I figure I’m doing pretty well.” She watches him continue his shocked society lady routine, watches him eye the couch and seats warily, his grandeur hardly covering his discomfort. “Make yourself at home, Miss Debutante, and I’ll get us some snacks and drinks and things. Iced tea?”

Josh laughs awkwardly and rubs his neck. “Uh, yeah! Yeah, sure. If you’ve got it.”

She doesn’t mention that she’s had it since he said he’d be showing up. “Coming right up.”

\-----

Sam sets a glass down in front of Josh, where he has literally made himself at home, lounging with his feet propped up on the coffee table, his arms draped over the back of the sofa. She hangs on to her own glass and pointedly makes for the chair set off to the far side of the living room area. If he’s here like he’s supposed to be here, she reasons, then proximity won’t help him make the decisions he needs to in order to resolve things.

By the time she’s seated he still hasn’t said anything, so she gestures to his feet. “I’m glad you’re so comfortable, Mister Washington.”

“Well,” he says, grinning at her and wriggling down into the couch cushions, “you’ve got a homey home, homie.”

Sam snorts, nearly choking on a sip of iced tea she takes as she struggles not to spit any out. “That was terrible!” she accuses when she finally regains control of her lungs, setting the glass down carefully on the nearest part of the coffee table. “How did that make it past your brain-to-mouth filter?”

He shrugs. “Uh, easy? I don’t have one of those. Clearly.”

“Ha ha,” she says, dry, but he goes immediately quiet so that she feels awful for laughing at all.

“So,” he starts eventually, dropping his feet and resting his elbows on his knees. Sam is expecting for things -- their things, the things he came to say -- to get a move on, but instead he finishes, “Where were you before you caught my stunning and impressive karaoke skills?”

Biting down on a sigh, Sam leans back in her armchair. “I was out.”

“That’s not fair, Sam-I-Am. Don’t question dodge!”

She eyes him with a lopsided smirk. “Who’s dodging?” she asks, lacing her fingers over her knee, and he looks scolded enough that she obliges him. “Chris actually came over and we went down to Stanley Park for pho.”

Josh perks up. “Pho’getta ‘Bout It?” he asks, eager. “I love that place, their fresh rolls are fucking killer!” When Sam stares him down, he clears his throat on a cough. “Uh, w-what did he want?”

“You know,” Sam does sigh this time, “you and him are _such_ a pair. He is just as bad about avoiding serious conversations as you are.”

“Hey, it’s what happens when you spend over a decade with a guy.”

She leans on the armrest closest to him, propping her face up. “He wanted to talk about you.”

That stops him. “Me? What the hell about?”

“Actually, he was showing up to play protective boyfriend with me. Told me to ‘give you a break’.”

“Jesus, he didn’t. Tell me he didn’t, Sam.”

She grins. “Yep. Thought I was pressuring you to speed up your therapy. As if I could _ever_ convince you to do anything.”

“You could convince me to do a lot of things,” he says, almost like she’s not meant to hear, then he practically cuts himself off with, “Like, fuck, you’d think the guy could’ve started behaving like this, oh, God, I don’t know--In middle school when I was making out with him like the power of my saliva could make him into me?” He drops his forehead into his waiting palm, shaking his head like a world-weary old man. “What a douche.”

Sam can’t help herself. She laughs, long and loud, arms wrapped around her stomach and her head tipped back over the armchair. “God, you two must share some crazy wavelength, he literally told me today about that!”

Josh looks at her, then looks back down and shakes his head with his eyes closed. “What a _douche_ ,” he intones with more gravity, though he’s peeking sideways at her a second later with a grin.

As she’s catching her breath, she watches him unfold and go back to sitting over-relaxed on the couch, more like he’s feigning it than anything else, and she briefly feels that same anger from the party flare in her chest, hot and upsetting. “Josh,” she starts, trying for gentle and mostly hitting strained. 

“I know,” he says, matching her tone but not looking at her. “I know, I _know_. I just... It’s hard? You know? And I don’t want you... I don’t want--I didn’t just come here because of... I genuinely want to hang out with you, Sam. You’re--”

The hot coil in her chest relaxes. “Hey, I want you to just be here to hang out too, but...” She leans over her knees, resting her elbows on them and lacing her fingers. “But I can’t just relax and pretend like nothing’s wrong. We both know why you’re here. And we both know it’s been put off long enough.”

He nods, still not looking at her, but he _is_ staring straight ahead. He looks so much stronger than she’s remembered him recently. “Do I get a grace period to figure out how I’m going to do this right?”

Sam smiles at him, knowing he can’t see. “Sure.” She stands, grabbing his glass, now empty, and takes it with her to the kitchen. Deliberately, she dawdles, finding ways to give him space and put off this whole thing just a moment longer.

When she sits back down, he’s pulled a knee up onto the couch and he’s facing the chair she was sitting in. He looks up at her, and she lets herself drop back down into the chair.

“I have a lot to apologize for,” Josh says, slowly at first, and his eyes dart away while he swallows slowly. “I did a lot of dumb shit on that mountain, and the dumbest was thinking I was somehow magically... normal again. After less than a year on medication. The first thing I’m sorry for is going off my meds. That’s what... that’s what gave me the whole--The whole ‘Psycho’ idea. I wasn’t thinking right, and that--that’s what led me to this whole fucked up revenge plot.”

Carefully, without moving enough to interrupt Josh’s momentum, Sam tucks herself onto the chair, picking up her feet underneath her.

“And that... well, I mean, that led me to playing around with Chris and Ashley, fucking up their lives and forcing them together before they were ready... I’ve already--I apologized to them before the dinner, made my amends about that but. I want you to know that I’m sorry for that too.”

Sam shakes her head. “You don’t need to hold yourself accountable to me for that, Josh.”

He shrugs, laughing a bit. “I know. Trust me, I’ve talked with Bellamy about this, I _know_. But... it feels like I should.” He sobers, and drops his eyes to his lap, his fingers grabbing at the hem of his jeans and twisting it between his fingers. “And then...”

Sam’s chest tightens, anxiety soaking her like a torrential rain.

Josh looks up at her then, his eyes bright and staring into her. “Sam, I am so sorry about what I did to you. I demoralized you, I humiliated you, I _disrespected_ you. I put you in a situation where you were made to feel like a caged animal, like a spectacle, like a-a... some kind of cheap _thing_ for my amusement and torment.” He’s looking down again, shaking his head, and his fingers make tearing motions at his jeans, his teeth grinding so loud she can almost hear it.

On impulse -- likely a bad one -- Sam moves across the space between them, and sits on the space of couch in front of him. She doesn’t touch him, hopes that’s the right choice, and bends down low enough that she’s in his line of sight. “Hey, come on. I get it, what else?”

He doesn’t startle to see her, but he wets his lips over and over before continuing. “I chased you and threatened you. I... Fuck, Sam, I _drugged _you and knocked you out. I _know_ what girls get told about guys doing that, I had to hear my father tell my sisters about it any time I took them to parties, I _know this shit_! I drugged you and I tied you to a chair and I left you to think you were going to die. I ruined parts of you.” Josh looks around, gestures to the thick, dark curtains that hang on her windows. “This is my fault! If I hadn’t been an ass, if I hadn’t taken everyone’s lives, everyone’s fears, into my hands, you wouldn’t be _fucked up_ like this, and it’s my fault. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Sammy...”__

__He pitches forward, and she catches his face between her hands, almost a reflex, and she tips their foreheads together. She closes her eyes and rests like that, breathing deeply to keep whatever is climbing up her throat at bay._ _

__“I’m so, so, so sorry, Sammy,” he repeats on a whisper, his voice shaking, and Sam knows he’s crying. “You were so important to me, you helped me so much, after--a-after the...” He stops, swallows, breathes heavy and shaking. “Even Chris treated me like glass after, and you... You didn’t. And I loved that, Sam, I loved it so much, but... But there’s this shit in my head, and these _things_ , and it all makes shit like that get so, so fucked up, so messed up I can’t--I can’t tell what’s what anymore, I get lost and twisted in my head and nothing looks like it’s rightside up anymore, and--”_ _

__“Shhh,” she hushes, rubbing her thumbs over his cheeks. “Shh-shh, I know.” She can’t help it; a sob bubbles up in her throat and it comes out like a strangled laugh. She twists her head back and forth, rubbing their foreheads together. It almost hurts, but mostly it feels right. “I know, it’s really hard, and I am so, _fiercely_ proud of you for making it here, Josh. You are so strong, and I _forgive you_.”_ _

__He shakes beneath her hands, his arms coming up around her back, and she presses his face into her neck, drawing him close as he breaks into heaving sobs. “Sammy...” he whines, holding her tight like she’s the only thing keeping him here._ _

__“I forgive you, Josh,” she says again, into his ear, softly, like a lament. “I forgive you, you did awful things, and I forgive you. We are never going to be the same people again, and I am never going to forget what happened, but I forgive you, Josh. _You are forgiven_.”_ _

__She can’t think of much else after that, because Josh squeezes her and hides his face in her neck, his sobbing not easing. Instead, she hushes him and rubs his back, reassures him with “I know”s and “I’m here”s while his body slowly stops shaking. For a long time, he’s not sobbing anymore, but still hiding his face in her neck, his grip around her looser but not releasing her yet. His breathing is laboured, and her own cheeks are streaked with tears she shed as silently as she could._ _

__Finally, Josh eases himself up with a deep, shaking breath. He wipes frantically at his face, and Sam bends back over the couch armrest to grab the box of tissues off the end table for him. He laughs as she struggles back into a sitting position, sniffing slightly. “Jesus Christ, sorry that you’re clearly going to have to burn that shirt later, I fucked it up.”_ _

__Sam looks at her shoulder, the wide wet stain that dampens her shirt. She shrugs. “It’ll live. Now blow your damn nose, Washington.”_ _

__He does, and she drops the box onto the coffee table. They settle into the silence, until Josh can’t seem to look up from his feet. “How?” he asks._ _

__“How, what?”_ _

__Josh shakes his head. “How can you forgive me?” he whispers, his face screwed up, confused. “What if I do something else? What if I do something worse? I know, I _know_ already did the worst thing, but what if I find new and undiscovered levels of awful shit to do to you?”_ _

__Sam reaches out, watching him to see if it’s okay, and takes his hand. “Josh...” she says, holding his one hand in both of hers. She plays with his fingers, tracing the span of them, bending them and rubbing them. It saves her from having to look into his eyes and see how broken he looks. “I forgive you because you’re _trying_. You did something awful, yeah. And that’s hard. It’s hard for me, and I’m still...” she breathes in, breathes out, starts again, “I’m not going to stop being angry, just... so fucking pissed at you, in the back of my mind. That’s not going to go away in a day. But--” She slides her fingers between his, rubs her thumb along the side of his hand. “But you’re trying, you’re clearly trying so hard, so I have to try to. I want to try. Because you are so _goddamn_ important to me, Josh.” Drawing his hand up with her own, she closes her eyes and drops a kiss to the spread of skin that joins his thumb with the rest of his hand. She hears him stop breathing, and smiles gently. “I forgive you because I’m still mad and you’re still struggling and we’re both _trying_.”_ _

__When his hand comes up to cup her cheek, Sam almost startles. She remembers the Psycho’s hands on her, grabbing her and drugging her, holding her and moving her, and finds that Josh’s hands now are nothing like that. She opens her eyes and he’s there, not too close, but closer than before, and he’s still red in the face and around his eyes, but..._ _

__She leans toward him, and he meets her when she kisses him, his hand tilting her head to fit their lips together, his hand dropping hers to pull her closer, and she slides a hand into his hair, drawing him in by the neck._ _

__It’s just that for a moment, just them pressing close and breathing together, hurried and heavy, until she lifts herself up. She moves onto her knees slowly, wary of any sign of nerves from Josh, but he urges her up, a hand finding her hip and easing her over. As he licks into her mouth, she plants her knee on the other side of him, pressing down against him with a pleased hum that curves his mouth into a smile. Hers answers, and they’re grinning and kissing and his hand on her back pulls her closer, her hips pressing and grinding salaciously. She pulls away and he’s looking at her in awe and she’s laughing at him, barely able to breathe. His other hand joins the first on her hips, just resting there, and she grinds down again, kissing his open mouth and drawing a surprised laugh from him._ _

__When her hands reach the hem of his shirt and pull, he pulls away, just a fraction of an inch, and she stops. “Josh?” she prompts, though it comes out more breathy than she’d like._ _

__“Shit,” he hisses, and tips his head back on the couch, staring at her ceiling with an agonized expression. “Fuck me, shit.”_ _

__She sits back on his knees, pulling away as much as she can without falling off the couch. “You wanna stop?”_ _

__He lifts his head and slams it back down once, holding up a finger when he feels her surge forward with concern. “Want to? _Hell_ fucking no. But should we? Uh... fuck, unfortunately I think we should.”_ _

__Now that she’s breathing better and touching Josh significantly less, Sam thinks maybe he has a point. “Shit. Shit, you’re right. This is... fuck, this is not--”_ _

__“So not the time to be doing this. Really, really goddamn not.”_ _

__“Not even remotely.”_ _

__Silence. “Can we make out just a little bit more? Please? I promise I’ll be good.”_ _

__Sam laughs, cupping his face and kissing him once, quick and chaste. She kisses him again, lingering this time, sighing against him when his hands come back up to her back, but she manages to pull away again. “Promise all you want, but I can’t do that.” He cocks an eyebrow at her, and she wiggles her hips, looking down at him sly and dark. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” she purrs at him, and summarily removes herself from his lap._ _

__She leaves him there, looking devastated, as he brings both hands up to rub aggressively at his face. “Fuck _me_ , Sam--”_ _

__“That’s exactly what I _won’t_ be doing!” she sings as she heads for the kitchen._ _

__“Jesus _Christ_ ,” he moans, but it breaks into a laugh about midway through. “I’ve made so many mistakes,” he laments._ _

__“Yep!” Sam assures him. She hears him rise from the couch, and she turns to give him a genuine smile. “I don’t want you to go right away though. I was about to put on some Netflix bullshit and curl up with a blanket and some Ben & Jerry’s. You are totally welcome to join me, as long as your hands stay on top of the blanket,” she offers._ _

__He steps up to her, reaching slowly, visibly, for her chin, and he kisses her, standing there. It’s cozy, like they’ve been like this for years, like he’s about to make dinner and she’s gotten home from work, like he’s passing her in the morning, like he’s going to bed early. She sighs into it, and when he releases her she knows she’s smiling like a dope. “If you can find me something I haven’t watched, I’ll buy dinner when I take you out.”_ _

__“When?” she asks accusingly, but she’s grinning._ _

__“Hell yeah, girl! I’m gonna do this first date thing right, I’m gonna treat _you_ right.”_ _

__She opens the freezer and pulls out the ice cream tub. “Grab the spoons and I’ll take that bet.”_ _


	4. what will we do now, we lost it to trying (epilogue)

“Josh,” Sam groans, not even half-awake and unsure of the time. “Josh, wha--”

The bed beside her is empty. The sheets are cold. Her heart’s in her throat and she’s fully awake in a moment, throwing the covers back and standing from the bed. The door’s open, a light on from down the hall. Water is running through the pipe’s, like the toilet’s just been flushed. The bathroom.

She pads down the hall, her bare feet pressing into the carpet without a sound. His voice drifts from the crack in the door, but she can’t distinguish words. “Josh?” she calls, but not nearly loud enough to grab his attention, fear choking her.

The door swings slowly open when she presses against it, light flooding the hallway and blinding her momentarily. Josh startles to see her standing there, and covers his head like she’s about to hit him. “... please, please. I’m so sorry, I d--no. No, I don’t--it’s. Hnng...” he mutters, nonsense words giving way to a pained, confused whine.

He’s curled by the toilet, like his head had until recently been hung over it, and his face is red from crying. The shirt he went to sleep in is in a pile by the sink, his forearms and the bared skin of his chest lined with raised, angry, red marks from his nails. It’s bad. “Hey, Josh,” Sam says evenly, crouching onto the tiles, resting on her knees so she’s cuts a less imposing figure. “Josh, it’s me, it’s Sam. How’re you doing, buddy?”

He raises an elbow to look at her, and at least recognition registers in his eyes. There have been times where it hasn’t, and those are hard for her. “S-Sammy?” he says, his voice breaking. It’s laced with desperate hope, and it cuts her to hear it. “Sam?” he asks, watery now, something near to a benediction.

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m here.” Inching closer is a careful thing, always is. Recognition doesn’t always mean he won’t lash out, and she’s made that mistake enough before. “What’s going on, Josh? How do I help?”

His head starts shaking, one of his hands extended out toward her, palm out and fingers spread. _Stop_. He’s crying, but not sobbing, and the trembling has stopped. Sam sits on her heels and waits for him. When his fingers curl and his nails drag down his face where the tears make track marks, she makes soothing ‘shh-ing’ noises, and he stops that as well eventually. It feels like hours, but he finally manages, “C-cold. So cold, damp, _l-loud_.”

Cold, loud. She knows those ones. “Drown it out?” she asks, already working in his dialect, the one he’s been teaching her with every rough patch and breakdown. “Drown it out or dry it out, babe?”

Josh only groans, which turns into a moan, and all she can do is shush him because he hasn’t given her the go-ahead to touch him again. It mostly doesn’t work, but she thinks that maybe just being there is keeping the worst at bay. Eventually, when the moan breaks and dies out, Josh scrubs at his face -- palms only when Sam tuts at his nails. “Drown. Drown it,” he says finally, and he eases himself into a sitting position.

“Okay,” Sam nods, patting a hand on the tiles where his eyes are fixated, so he knows she’s still there, “okay.”

She scoots over to the bathtub, twisting the knobs for hot water. The sound of the running water is deafening in the silence of the early morning hours, but Josh looks like he’s coming back to himself with it. He hugs his knees, still not looking up from the tiles, and Sam tries to keep an eye on the bath and him at the same time.

The bathroom is misty with steam when she twists the knobs off. “Josh,” she asks quietly, when he looks significantly more distressed to have the noise gone. “Josh, the water’s ready, hon.”

He nods, but doesn’t move. She’s about to ask him, when he lifts both hands and makes beckoning motions with his fingers. Something that had coiled tight in her chest -- the same thing that always coils up and strangles her when he pushes her away like this -- releases her. Sam reaches out, and waits for Josh to brush his fingers against hers, lets him figure out what contact is good, how much touch is okay.

A dam must break in him, because first he’s tracing her palm with his fingers, and then he’s pulling himself away from the bathroom wall with her arm like he’s trying to pull himself out of the wall’s gravity. Sam draws him against her chest, wrapping her arms around his back. “It’s okay, I’m here. I’m right here, Josh. You’re here, and I’ve got you.”

He shivers, a full-bodied thing. “Cold,” he whispers into the shirt of his that Sam wears to bed, “‘m so cold.”

She kisses the top of his head, rubbing her palms up and down his back. “Well, then, let’s get you into that warm water, huh? Boxers off?”

Josh nods, and he wriggles out of them in increments. When he kicks them off, she flings them over with his sleep shirt, and he slides into the bath bonelessly. He rests in the water, curled up on his stomach with his knees under him, his face pressed against the porcelain edge. It doesn’t look comfortable, but his body relaxes visibly. “Warm,” he sighs.

“Mm-hmm,” Sam nods, and she reaches over the edge to rub his back. Down under the water, cupped to draw some up, up to his neck and let the warm water wash down his sides, back down again. Over and over while he relaxes. Time passes, and she’s not sure she could reliably say how much. Josh cries silently once or twice, then his breathing evens out.

The water is colder than it ought to be when he cracks an eye to look at her. There’s more of him there when she looks than she’s seen all night. “Howdy, pardner,” he says, his voice raw.

She smiles at him. “Well, howdy,” she whispers to him.

“You got the time, good lookin’?”

“Mmm, didn’t get a chance to check when I got up. Call it four?”

Josh groans, but it’s much less pained than she’s heard. “Cool,” he says, sarcasm dripping. “Super cool, awesome.” He shivers under her hand.

“You good if I go throw a towel in the dryer for you?” she asks, and his face splits in a happy grin.

“How’d I get so lucky with you, Sammy?”

She smiles at him, pushing out of a crouch with more effort than she’d like. “Lots of fucking effort. That’s not an answer.”

He shivers again. “F-fuck, yes. Please go.”

It’s with another mental thank you note written to the company responsible for her apartment building that she grabs a towel and tosses it into her dryer for a minute to warm it up. She brings it back to him and wraps him up in it, using another, smaller one for his hair. He’s listless and tired, but he smiles gratefully at her. He’s not fully back yet, but he will be. “Sleep?”

“I’ll try.”

“We’ve got dinner with Chris and Ash tonight, but I can call and cancel if you need.”

Josh hums, holding the towel around his shoulders with one hand and letting her lead him with the other. “No. No, I want to. I’ll nap with you in the afternoon if I need.”

Sam squeezes his hand, and hears him sigh. “You sure? They’d understand.”

“... Later. Let me figure it all out, then I’ll decide.”

“Okay.” She makes for her side of the bed, but he grabs her by the shirt and tugs on the hem. Wordlessly, she lifts it off, him crawling under the covers and drawing her against him when she slips in beside him. Skin, pressed as close as is comfortable, as much of them in contact as they can manage. “I’m here,” she says with her lips pressed against his neck, and he sighs out all the air in his lungs.

\-----

Morning comes later than usual, predictably, but it comes all the same. Sam’s blackout curtains help, but eventually the heat of the sun gets to them. They’ve pulled apart in the night, all except Sam’s fingers under Josh’s neck, and his palm pressed over her stomach. She blinks her eyes open and finds him looking at her, only moderately more awake. “Mornin’, princess,” he says, and he looks rested which goes a long way to easing her worries. Nameless, shapeless anxiety still pulls at her like rubber bands from the ground, momentarily forgotten when he kisses her, but it propels her out of bed. 

They dress easily, nothing to do except dinner later, and they leave the bedroom almost in unison. Sam heads for the bathroom, Josh heads for the kitchen. “Josh?” she calls, neither accusatory nor threatening, merely the same daily concern put to a single word.

He yawns, scratching his head with one hand and waving at her with the other. “Grab ‘em for me, I’ll make some breakfast to go with.”

She smirks. “Pretty sure at this hour you call it ‘lunch,’ cowboy,” but she keeps on for the bathroom. Behind the mirror is the medicine cabinet, stocked with extra toothbrushes for guests (plus the one Josh has claimed as his own) and half-empty tubes of toothpaste, deodorant and creams, and a final top shelf full of a range of orange, see-through pill bottles, some with her name, some with Josh’s. As soon as he’d started sleeping over, she’d insisted that he bring back-up meds to her place, more for her peace of mind than his.

Never one to eat with morning breath, she brushes her teeth first every morning, while Josh usually waits until after he’s eaten. Once she’s done, she grabs her anxiety meds, and then taps out the other dose that she’s worked into her routine.

Two handfuls of pills in her hands, she returns to the smell of cooking bacon and sits at the stools set up on the other side of the extended countertop. “Bacon, eh? I figured you’d be shirking the effort it takes after last night,” she comments. Josh abandons his post at the stove long enough to get two glasses of water, and places one in front of her.

“Hey, you took care of me, I’ll take care of you.” It’s said with a wink, but she smiles at the sincerity that dances in his eyes. He picks up one of the pills he’s meant to be taking, and makes a face at it.

Pointedly, Sam dutifully swallows her dose, drinking the full glass and making a satisfied sound afterward.

Josh rolls his eyes, but grabs for the glass and says, as he’s putting the pill to his lips, “And the Oscar goes to...”

That’s pretty much their morning routine when Josh stays over. Wake up together, take meds together, eat breakfast, then figure out the rest of the day. It’s usually ‘Josh watches Netflix while Sam gets ready for work,’ or ‘Josh goes back home and pretends like he won’t be back that same night.’ 

Today, the plan is as they discussed last night: Sam lounges on the couch on her day off, watching old TV shows on Netflix, while Josh falls asleep with his head on her lap. It’s the kind of low-key recharge time they need after the night before, and Josh seems to get the kind of solid sleep he needs with Sam’s fingers in his hair.

Josh stirs at four-thirty. “Mornin’, princess,” Sam says to him, and he laughs and buries his face in her stomach. His stubble tickles. “You feelin’ up to dealing with people, or should I call Ash?”

He hums, tickling her more. She squirms, and he cuts his eyes up to look at her with a mischievous grin before lifting the hem of her tanktop and rubbing his unshaven chin on her bare stomach.

The discussion is abandoned as Sam dissolves into giggles and seeks revenge in the form of Josh Washington’s only known weakness: his sensitive sides. The battle for dominance is a sham, Sam being far more in shape from teaching rock climbing than Josh with his wishy-washy workout routine, and she easily bests him, sitting astride his hips in victory. It’s a five minute affair, but they’re both out of breath by the end of it. Sam leans over him, propping herself on her elbows to kiss him. “That’s not an answer, cowboy,” she says against his lips.

He strains up to kiss her again, but she pulls away. He whines. “Sam- _antha_ , please. You are _such_ a tease. I never would have pegged you for it.”

Without even a thought, she reaches out and tweaks a nipple through his shirt. His back arches and he cries out in surprise, looking startled and offended when she relents with a smile. “Evasion. Strike one. Try again.”

Pouting, Josh tries to free his hands from where they’re trapped beside his hips by Sam’s thighs. Privately, she praises herself for doing as many squats as she does for those. Josh sighs. “Sam--”

“‘No’ is an acceptable answer.”

Another sigh. “Okay, bubble for a second.”

In a heartbeat, Sam steps off the couch and off of Josh. She curls up in her armchair. ‘Bubble,’ meaning their shorthand for ‘Give me space to sort out the mess of my thoughts.’ “Sorry,” she says, resting her chin on her knee.

“No, it’s not... you didn’t fuck up, I was enjoying it, you know how I work.” He grins at her. “Not that much bubble, babe,” he says, and pats the couch recently vacated by his legs. She moves, grabbing the throw pillow from behind her to hug, even though she doesn’t feel as bad as she usually does when he asks for space. “I get what you were doing -- and on any other day, I probably would have needed it. But today, I didn’t. I can go to dinner with Chris and Ash. I’m good.” 

He reaches across the space she created to cup her face, and she presses his hand to her cheek with her own. “Sorry,” she says again. She scoots closer, and she lets him kiss her, and she says, “Just say so, next time, okay? I’m so used to your evasion tactics, I just expect them now.”

Josh bumps their foreheads. “Yeah. I will. Sorry, Sammy.” She kisses him again, but doesn’t pull away. They stay like that for some time, exchanging breaths between them. “So,” Josh whispers, eventually. “Is dinner at their place, or downtown?”

“Uh...” Sam checks her phone. “Their place. Chris says Ash had a bad night too.”

“Oh, thank God,” Josh sighs, his forehead dropping to her shoulder. “I could have done it, but their house is so much less work than somewhere fancy downtown.”

She laughs, and pats his cheek, kissing the other. “Come on, let’s get ready. We’ll take your car.”

“Hell yeah, we’ll take my car, my car kicks your car’s ass!”

“Your car has more gas, and also doesn’t have all my climbing gear in it.”

Josh shrugs as she leaves. “That’s fair.”

As she’s picking things out of her dresser to wear, throwing them on the bed and staring at them critically, she hears footsteps in the hall and feels arms around her waist soon after. Josh kisses the join of her neck and shoulder, and she raises a hand to scratch gently at his scalp. “Still on your mind, huh?”

“Sorry for safewording you...” he mutters. It sounds petulant, and it’s spoken against her skin, but she knows he’s genuinely concerned she’s upset.

Twisting in his arms, she cups his face. “The word is there to be used. It lets me know what you’re thinking when your brain isn’t letting you say it, when you need time to figure it out, when you can’t think with me that close.”

He sags. Sam’s fairly sure he’s relaxing, but still, he says, “But you never safeword me.”

“It’s not ‘never safeword you,’” she clarifies, tapping his nose once and turning back to her clothes. “It’s ‘haven’t safeworded you, yet.’ The breakdowns you have and the attacks that I get are two very different things, and happen in very different contexts. I promise you that there will almost definitely come a time when I will need to tell you to back off.”

Josh hums, pulling out one of the other drawers in her dresser, the one she specifically vacated for him. “That’s not very optimistic.”

Sam pulls on a shirt, takes a look at it, flattens it against her stomach, and then pulls it off. “No, it’s pragmatic. Anxiety and PTSD don’t get better overnight, and don’t get better just with medication. I have to constantly work at fending off attacks, and it’s exhausting, and one day I’m just not going to be able to fend them off anymore.” She pulls on a pair of pants, shimmying into them. “That’s just facts.”

“I’m going to be there,” Josh says, every fibre of his being poured into meaning it. “I’m gonna be there for you, and I’m going to help you when you can’t fend them off anymore.”

Her pants are undone, and she’s only wearing her bra otherwise, and all he’s wearing are a pair of ratty old sweatpants he keeps at her place, but she believes him. For a moment she’s clairvoyant and she sees their future spread out ahead of her, the Josh that survived everything, the Josh responsible for everything, the Josh she thought she might never forgive, helping her fend off demons one more time. Five years out, sharing a home and a medicine cabinet still, helping each other through episodes and breakdowns and attacks; ten years out, buying a house and building a space that caters to them, a space that caters to their friends and all the ways that they are still broken but still beautiful; forty years out, and living lives where that night seems impossible, both of them existing in such a way as to erase nearly all trace of that night except for every way it’s etched into their bones.

It’s beautiful, and she believes him, because he tried for her, and she tries for him, and together there is so much that they are still trying to do. 

She smiles at him, pulls another shirt over her head. “I’m counting on it. Now hurry up, Ash is gonna worry if we’re late.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a final vignette to round things out, to show that things dont get better quickly, and that getting better is always a struggle. because while i love happy endings, no matter which way you try to spin until dawn, it can't ever have one. it _can_ , however, have a realistically optimistic ending. and that's what i wanted.
> 
> i apologize for the huge break between chapters 3 and 4, work got me crazy tired and i couldn't post this without doing a proper once over.
> 
> thanks guys, and you can catch me hanging around [here](http://tinytinychopper.tumblr.com) at my tumblr if you wanna see more of me.
> 
> cheers.


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